Thief

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@SuperFunkWagon Legend! Mind if I add these to the guide and credit you?

I don't mind at all.

I think this stuff is legitimate at our level 50 cap. Later on, there'll be different builds as we get more skill points, since we'll have a lot more flexibility (can max haste + Ruthless, for instance).

After a bit of further testing, I figured out a build where Vicious Cuts is actually super good.

Right here, we have a poison-centric build -without- Surprise Attack.

You may be wondering, why?

Well, using Surprise Attack every time you have two instances of Poison up will obviously get rid of the poison you have on the enemy, which won't let the poison run its full course.

If you get rid of Surprise Attack, you keep the Poisons on the enemy and let them run for their full course. You weave Double Slash with Vicious Cuts in and out in order to optimize DPS while keeping your spirit up. I think this build does more single-target DPS than the Surprise Attack build if you manage your spirit correctly, while keeping your poison stacks up.

Also, in this build, Ruthless Guile is 100% more worth it due to the fact that you're keeping poison up at all times, so the bonus damage really comes into play here.

@SuperFunkWagon Legend! Mind if I add these to the guide and credit you?

I don't mind at all.

I think this stuff is legitimate at our level 50 cap. Later on, there'll be different builds as we get more skill points, since we'll have a lot more flexibility (can max haste + Ruthless, for instance).

Be sure to get all the exploration rewards and trophies! Lots of them give skill and attribute points.

I've been testing out some builds on the dummies in the Guild House, and I'd like to share my findings.

Note that I won't be giving any exact numbers, as it's hard to -not- attack all three dummies (in terms of testing for single target vs. AoE).

We'll go with three different builds, plus a comparison for one of these three builds.

First: Blade Dance Build

In Multi-target situations, this build is the undisputed king. You attack everything around you, and you constantly rebuild your spirit faster than you can drain it, even with Haste up. Using my current gear (gearscore 1749), I was consistently doing upwards to 60k DPS over 2 minutes on three dummies. This is taking into account that I did not get any dodge procs on Retaliation, so this damage can be even higher in an actual dungeon.

With single target, I was getting 10k DPS over 2 minutes. Can't build spirit fast enough without at least three targets, and having to use Double Slash (even at level 8) doesn't compensate for the loss in your spirit. You can move some stuff around (taking away points from Double Slash to put into Somersault, which is what I usually go with), but it still won't be as good as the other builds listed. Still, this is my go-to build for Dungeons, as even though the boss will take longer to kill, the mobs will be minced meat.

Second: Vicious Cuts Build

I see a lot of people using this build in dungeons and grinding.

Stop it.

This build is pretty bad, and here are the reasons why:

First, you need to be able to hit three targets consistently with Vicious Cuts in order to keep your spirit up. Otherwise, you will run out faster than you would if you were using Blade Dance. The positioning for these three targets is a lot harder than that of Blade Dance's as well, so you're making things more difficult for yourself.

Secondly, the DPS is actually -worse- than if I were to use Blade Dance. With three targets, always keeping haste up, using Somersault when available and keeping vial up, I only did 57k DPS over 2 minutes, compared to Blade Dance's 60k. It's a harder build for worse DPS in the multi-target area.

As far as Single-Target goes, it does bode better than Blade Dance does, but not by much. 10.5k DPS over 2 minutes as opposed to 10k. And I run out of spirit faster. In a dungeon scenario, Blade Dance is just better, as you hit more targets and it's easier to use.

Third: Poison Build

So this is everyone's -least- favorite build. There's a lot of people who think it's the best, but never use it because the others are easier to use. I'm here to tell you that it ain't that hard to use, and it's the best single-target build out of all three of these.

Multi-Target wise, this build is complete garbage. 33k DPS max over 2 minutes. Yeah, no. Go with the other two (or just Blade Dance, because Vicious Cuts sucks). This was with a hours of testing, a lot of practice with the rotation, and always having poison up, even after Surprise Attack usage.

Single-Target, however, is where this build truly shines. 20k DPS over 2 minutes. That utterly smashes the other two. Now, keep in mind, that since I was using the guild house dummies for testing, this number is not entirely accurate; both vial and Surprise Attack would hit all three targets. However, after doing some calculating, over 2 minutes, those two attacks would only result in a dps gain of about 3k DPS. This is also taking into account that the vial throws for the other two builds for single-target also hit all three targets, so their DPSs were inflated by about 1k DPS as well. So, in theory, the numbers would be more like 17k vs 9k and 9.5k single-target.

Poison Build is the clear winner here.

However, there's an even better version of the Poison Build, which gains about 3k DPS overall.

Introducing, max haste!

Ruthless Guile is decent, and it sounds good on paper, but think of what Haste does for you: increases your physical attack by 16%, and increases your attack speed and movement speed by 21%.

Why is that good?

More procs. That's literally the reason why. You get more procs from your Double Slash to keep your Poison Edge's dot up with, which in turn allows your Surprise Attack to consume two poisons more often. It's a flat DPS increase, and it also buffs your damage by 16% as well. It's flat out better than Ruthless Guile. With this build, I was getting upwards to 23k dps single-target.

This concludes my testing and information. I just wanted to share what I found. These tests aren't entirely accurate, but there as accurate as I could get them to be. If anyone has any opinions or corrections they'd like to share, please, by all means, share! I'm trying to find the most viable build to do tons of damage with, so I would like it if anyone were to share their findings as well.

As for PvP, just max vial, somersault, and surprise attack, and you're good to go really.

I have 4 extra skill points, do you think it is better if I put them on Poison Edge or Ruthless Guile?

After a bit of further testing, I figured out a build where Vicious Cuts is actually super good.

Right here, we have a poison-centric build -without- Surprise Attack.

You may be wondering, why?

Well, using Surprise Attack every time you have two instances of Poison up will obviously get rid of the poison you have on the enemy, which won't let the poison run its full course.

If you get rid of Surprise Attack, you keep the Poisons on the enemy and let them run for their full course. You weave Double Slash with Vicious Cuts in and out in order to optimize DPS while keeping your spirit up. I think this build does more single-target DPS than the Surprise Attack build if you manage your spirit correctly, while keeping your poison stacks up.

Also, in this build, Ruthless Guile is 100% more worth it due to the fact that you're keeping poison up at all times, so the bonus damage really comes into play here.

So with this new VC build which build do you recommend overall? I tend to prefer single target dps, but I do like a hint of AOE for mob clear

Do you guys know what are the best stats to go for on thief?
Like from best to worst? Luck, Critical rate, Critical damage, pierce, meele damage? etc
There's so many stats and the fact that critical rate doesn't actually show your crit % is super frustrating...

After a bit of further testing, I figured out a build where Vicious Cuts is actually super good.

Right here, we have a poison-centric build -without- Surprise Attack.

You may be wondering, why?

Well, using Surprise Attack every time you have two instances of Poison up will obviously get rid of the poison you have on the enemy, which won't let the poison run its full course.

If you get rid of Surprise Attack, you keep the Poisons on the enemy and let them run for their full course. You weave Double Slash with Vicious Cuts in and out in order to optimize DPS while keeping your spirit up. I think this build does more single-target DPS than the Surprise Attack build if you manage your spirit correctly, while keeping your poison stacks up.

Also, in this build, Ruthless Guile is 100% more worth it due to the fact that you're keeping poison up at all times, so the bonus damage really comes into play here.

I tried your max Haste Poison VS this build and max Haste Poison seems a lot better. I was pulling out 42-45k DPS with Max Haste and 35-38k with This build.

Also I did some testing with stats and I get the most optimal results while running Critical rate at around 200 and everything else into LUK. I'd say 1/3 to Half your points should go to crit rate and rest to LUK in the endgame.
Pure critical rate was absolute trash, and PURE LUK was outputting similar but worse results than crit/luk hybrid.

After a bit of further testing, I figured out a build where Vicious Cuts is actually super good.

Right here, we have a poison-centric build -without- Surprise Attack.

You may be wondering, why?

Well, using Surprise Attack every time you have two instances of Poison up will obviously get rid of the poison you have on the enemy, which won't let the poison run its full course.

If you get rid of Surprise Attack, you keep the Poisons on the enemy and let them run for their full course. You weave Double Slash with Vicious Cuts in and out in order to optimize DPS while keeping your spirit up. I think this build does more single-target DPS than the Surprise Attack build if you manage your spirit correctly, while keeping your poison stacks up.

Also, in this build, Ruthless Guile is 100% more worth it due to the fact that you're keeping poison up at all times, so the bonus damage really comes into play here.

I tried your max Haste Poison VS this build and max Haste Poison seems a lot better. I was pulling out 42-45k DPS with Max Haste and 35-38k with This build.

Also I did some testing with stats and I get the most optimal results while running Critical rate at around 200 and everything else into LUK. I'd say 1/3 to Half your points should go to crit rate and rest to LUK in the endgame.
Pure critical rate was absolute trash, and PURE LUK was outputting similar but worse results than crit/luk hybrid.

It's effectively the same as Haste Potion, but without Haste. Instead, I took max Cunning Tactics.

The reason I did this is because Cunning Tactics at level 10 has a 13 second cooldown; nearly the same length as Poison Edge's dot duration. In the Red Dragon raid, the boss moves around a whole lot, and you won't be able to effectively damage it while dodging mechanics all the time; there's a lot of downtime where your Haste is literally just running your SP out without you doing anything. Max Poison Edge, max Poison Vial, max Ruthless, max cunning, max Vicious Cuts. With this, I was able to consistently keep DPS going and was able to outdo everyone else in my party. Granted, I was also using Chaotic Extreme gear, so my poison damage was even further increased.

It's effectively the same as Haste Potion, but without Haste. Instead, I took max Cunning Tactics.

The reason I did this is because Cunning Tactics at level 10 has a 13 second cooldown; nearly the same length as Poison Edge's dot duration. In the Red Dragon raid, the boss moves around a whole lot, and you won't be able to effectively damage it while dodging mechanics all the time; there's a lot of downtime where your Haste is literally just running your SP out without you doing anything. Max Poison Edge, max Poison Vial, max Ruthless, max cunning, max Vicious Cuts. With this, I was able to consistently keep DPS going and was able to outdo everyone else in my party. Granted, I was also using Chaotic Extreme gear, so my poison damage was even further increased.

https://imgur.com/a/hU6WB9q I like to use this build which i suddenly came up with before looking into any of your guides. Its nearly identical to your orginal max haste build but i use the 10 points that was put into surprise attack and 4 points from poison vial to max out double slash, poison edge and ruthless guile to 6 points. I also like to use somersault kick to build spirit and for its damage

I've gotten some decent results in damage using this build
At first i thought Ruthless guile was only 7% more damage to just the poison ticks but didn't realize it was 7% more of any poison damage just for it being poisoned (which it always should be.) For single target it works really well but not really ideal for dungeon runs. I'm still messing with this build but it's what I've come to like so far.

I've gotten some decent results in damage using this build
At first i thought Ruthless guile was only 7% more damage to just the poison ticks but didn't realize it was 7% more of any poison damage just for it being poisoned (which it always should be.) For single target it works really well but not really ideal for dungeon runs. I'm still messing with this build but it's what I've come to like so far.

Haha its basically identical to mine but just 3 points from double slash into surprise attack. I don't use surprise attack because during the raid, the boss will be moving a lot and it would be hard to stack the full poison into a surprise attack repeatedly. Rather, I like to let it keep ticking and keep it on as the boss dashes around the map. It would take around 5 seconds of fully stacked poison to equal the same amount of surprise attack if it was maxed with full stack of poison.

At first i thought Ruthless guile was only 7% more damage to just the poison ticks but didn't realize it was 7% more of any poison damage just for it being poisoned (which it always should be.) For single target it works really well but not really ideal for dungeon runs. I'm still messing with this build but it's what I've come to like so far.

I did a bit of looking at numbers and it seems to do more than that hilariously (Though this might have been what you meant but ill just explain it a bit more if so for other people)

Basically Ruthless Guile just does a raw tick of 7% poison damage. It doesn't sound like a lot but then you have to take into account that at level 6 Vial is doing ticks of 50% poison damage. You then realise that it's basically doing 1/7th of a Vial tick at Lv6 every time you hit something. And it's not just per skill it seems to do the 7% per attack on the skill. So Vicious Cuts ends up doing 45% Poison Damage every time you use it.

Not only that, but it seems to also do another 7% tick per attack if you have a stack of Poison Edge's Poison on the target too.
(I had to time this very carefully so the damage would show up when the actual dots didn't.)
Multiple Stacks of Poison Edge doesn't seem to do anything though you only need one to get the extra hit to pop up.

So that means everytime you use Vicious Cuts with both of these poisons up you do 90% poison damage on top of the normal damage that Vicious Cuts has. And Double Slash gets an extra 14% poison damage when you use it with both poisons.

Idk how poison damage scales but it seems to be similar to normal Physical Attack% so this is like basically making each of these buttons do probably like 1/4th more damage.

Which means if you don't have this passive you lose out on SOOOOOO much damage.

So I'm basically using this build for raids.

With more SP available this would only get that much better since you can max more skills.

Cunning Buff isn't maxed because I don't have SP for it. Otherwise I would max it.
Kick is maxed instead of Surprise Attack because you won't always have both poison dots up (attempting to keep them both up 24/7 during a raid honestly just makes you lose dps trying for those cunning procs tbh) so kick ends up being more consistent damage.
Poison Edge Dot gets refreshed every time Cunning Buff goes off cooldown (which is why having the buff maxed would be really nice but ahh...)
I guess once you max those buttons you would max haste and the passive below it last or something (haste really doesn't seem worth the extra sp yet...)
then maybe get quick step...

I would go for the dodge passive but I for the life of me couldn't proc it during a raid and trying to force proc it with Blade Dance's buff (that only lasts 1 second) was hell.

At first i thought Ruthless guile was only 7% more damage to just the poison ticks but didn't realize it was 7% more of any poison damage just for it being poisoned (which it always should be.) For single target it works really well but not really ideal for dungeon runs. I'm still messing with this build but it's what I've come to like so far.

I did a bit of looking at numbers and it seems to do more than that hilariously (Though this might have been what you meant but ill just explain it a bit more if so for other people)

Basically Ruthless Guile just does a raw tick of 7% poison damage. It doesn't sound like a lot but then you have to take into account that at level 6 Vial is doing ticks of 50% poison damage. You then realise that it's basically doing 1/7th of a Vial tick at Lv6 every time you hit something. And it's not just per skill it seems to do the 7% per attack on the skill. So Vicious Cuts ends up doing 45% Poison Damage every time you use it.

Not only that, but it seems to also do another 7% tick per attack if you have a stack of Poison Edge's Poison on the target too.
(I had to time this very carefully so the damage would show up when the actual dots didn't.)
Multiple Stacks of Poison Edge doesn't seem to do anything though you only need one to get the extra hit to pop up.

So that means everytime you use Vicious Cuts with both of these poisons up you do 90% poison damage on top of the normal damage that Vicious Cuts has. And Double Slash gets an extra 14% poison damage when you use it with both poisons.

Idk how poison damage scales but it seems to be similar to normal Physical Attack% so this is like basically making each of these buttons do probably like 1/4th more damage.

Which means if you don't have this passive you lose out on SOOOOOO much damage.

So I'm basically using this build for raids.

With more SP available this would only get that much better since you can max more skills.

Cunning Buff isn't maxed because I don't have SP for it. Otherwise I would max it.
Kick is maxed instead of Surprise Attack because you won't always have both poison dots up (attempting to keep them both up 24/7 during a raid honestly just makes you lose dps trying for those cunning procs tbh) so kick ends up being more consistent damage.
Poison Edge Dot gets refreshed every time Cunning Buff goes off cooldown (which is why having the buff maxed would be really nice but ahh...)
I guess once you max those buttons you would max haste and the passive below it last or something (haste really doesn't seem worth the extra sp yet...)
then maybe get quick step...

I would go for the dodge passive but I for the life of me couldn't proc it during a raid and trying to force proc it with Blade Dance's buff (that only lasts 1 second) was hell.

The thing I've noticed about Vicious Cuts on single targets with haste is it eats your spirit really fast. So the usage of it drastically goes down over the course of a fight.